Things Left Behind
by Azusa Kuraino
Summary: A Shepherd meets a Lamb in a fresh fall of winter snow...


Author's Notes: This particular story falls into a post-game storyline of mine, from which the references to alternate paths of magic stem, as well as the explanation of where exactly they're all living, anyway. I thought it could stand on its own even without the background, however.   
  
**Things Left Behind**   
  
    Though grey clouds had hung low and heavy in the sky since late afternoon, bringing with them a dry tension in the cold air that warned of impending snow, the twilight was clear and snowless. He had ventured out alone, into the crisp evening, into the air that seared against his skin and wrung tears from his eyes when he walked against the wind, and now he sat alone on a bench overhung by dark bare trees, looking over the great hill and the woods beyond.   
  
    The work of the previous day's snowfall had been cleared from the roads by now, putting the new machines with their internal combustion engines to the test: they had proved both workable and efficient, though from what Ramsus understood of their inner workings, the efficiency of the fuel injection systems had a considerable margin for improvement. He wasn't certain why that particular fact nagged at him so: it wasn't his problem, and someone else would take care of it, someone who knew more than he did about such matters. Hyuga or Yui could do something about it; he didn't have to worry. It had nothing to do with him.   
  
    Somehow, though, he couldn't get it off his mind tonight. That irked him somewhat. Wasn't there always someone else who would step in and take care of things when they fell outside his experience or just didn't feel like it?   
  
    Ramsus shifted on the stiff bench; the pervading cold had seeped into the wooden planks and was now beginning to creep up through his jacket, through his clothes, numbing his legs. He didn't even like the cold; in fact, he despised it. His only experience with weather of this sort had been a particularly unpleasant mission to the polar regions; full of his own arrogance, he had come unprepared, improperly dressed, and frostbite had been the result. Needless to say, it was not an experience he was particularly keen on repeating.   
  
    That being so, he wasn't sure why he continued to subject himself to the frigid air, growing colder and colder as the sun went down. Punishment, perhaps. Self-deprivation. Penance for his sins.   
  
    A shrill cry from the opposite side of the hill broke his thoughts; across the white glare of the slope, a pair of children slid down in tandem, side-by-side on makeshift cardboard sleds. The snow seemed to catch their voices, muffle the noise, even as their cries intensified. At the bottom they tumbled into soft drifts, rolled over and over, short little shrieks of terror mixed with delighted laughter. Then, clambering to their feet on tottering legs, they shook snow and ice off and began the long stumble back up to the top of the hill, where fifteen or twenty other children stood clustered, waiting their turns for the sleds.   
  
    Exhaling a grey puff of breath, he shook his head, chilled hair falling into his eyes. Surely they felt the cold too; surely even through their bundles of scarves and hats and jackets it seared through to their skin. Why then did they stay here? Why did they _play_ in the frigid icy stuff-- _immerse_ themselves in it, burrowing into it, flinging it at each other?   
  
    There was so much he didn't understand. So much he'd never understand. What did they feel when they careened down that hill, fear and joy mixed together in their cries? What went on in their heads? They looked so delirious with happiness, though he certainly couldn't fathom how they could feel that way in sub-freezing weather.   
  
    Ramsus pulled his black wool jacket more tightly across his chest, nuzzling his chin further into the soft folds of the scarf Elehaym had knitted for him. In time, he mused dismally, all these children would grow up and grow old and yet they would still share this with each other-- the reality of having once been a child. The reality that seperated him from the rest of humanity. He held no illusions of ever hoping to understand _that_ facet of the human condition; he had no experience upon which to draw. How did one explain a sunset to the blind, or music to the deaf? Even Sigurd and Hyuga had that thing in common, that near-universal experience which every ordinary human could draw upon. In that, he felt as if a chasm as dark and cold as the woods at the bottom of the hill seperated him from them.   
  
    He folded his arms across his shoulderblades, half-hugging himself in attempt to muster more warmth. The black leather gloves he was wearing pulled stiffly against his knuckles; he'd found them in a closet of the house, and while they were warm enough, they were just a size or two too small for him. The aged, matted fleece which lined their insides began to chafe uncomfortably against his hands. Sigurd had told him that during the winter solstice there was a holiday his people traditionally celebrated, something about a "festival of lights" where family members and friends exchanged gifts. He considered asking for a new pair of gloves.   
  
    A dark blur of movement on the near side of the hill caught the attention of his peripheral vision, and he turned, momentarily distracted from thought, to see a small figure stumbling through the gathering darkness at the bottom of the hill, tugging a weathered wooden sled in its wake. A child? He couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl, bundled as it was under the woolen folds of an overly-large jacket. He exhaled again, blowing out a long trail of steam into the frigid air.   
  
    The figure, its eyes squinted shut against the cold wind, turned to stare up the hill, revealing a long brown braid tied by a purple ribbon. A girl, then. Squaring her shoulders back resolutely, she grabbed hold of the frayed rope tethered to the sled and began to clamber up the hill-- far steeper on this side than it was where the other children congregated.   
  
    A slight frown wrought its way into Ramsus's face. He disliked cold, he disliked children, and he could very well, if he so pleased, be back in the enveloping warmth of the house right now, surrounded by light and human comfort. Even Sigurd had remarked that he'd seemed a bit different lately. It distressed Ramsus in a faint, underlying sort of way: he liked to know his own motives, to understand his reasons for doing things. Sometimes it seemed to him that when he'd awakened all those months ago in the strange bedroom of an unfamiliar house, something else had woken with him. Something he didn't understand, something that had been so long severed he scarcely recognized it as a part of himself.   
  
    On the slope below, the girl continued to struggle towards the top with her sled, the climb slow and tedious. The weight of the sled was clearly no small burden for a child so young to bear; more than once she slipped, losing her footing in the grey-green boots that looked as though they had been worn to ineffectiveness by many years of owners. Ramsus found himself unconsciously tensing his muscles, chilled stiff by the cold already, and his teeth bit into his lower lip before he realized what he was doing.   
  
    The girl extended a bare hand, reaching for an exposed outcropping of rock to help her in her climb-- and, halfway up the hill, stumbled and fell again, grabbing for the rock and missing. The rope tied to the sled fell from her hand, and the sled went careening backwards towards the bottom of the hill. Its owner slid after it with a small cry, flailing helplessly as she tumbled downhill in the slippery snow, ending at last back where she had begun from.   
  
    _She ought to just give up,_ Ramsus mused to himself, knitting his brows. _She can't possibly climb such a steep slope._ And yet, undeterred, the little girl was going after her sled again, grabbing hold of the knotted rope and beginning that tedious climb towards the summit, step by shambling step.   
  
    He was biting his lip again, he realized. The tight leather of the gloves pulled taut across his skin as his hands slowly clenched into fists. One step, and then another, and another. She was heading up the very same way, up that impossible climb-- and slipped, again, losing the sled. Failing again and again.   
  
    _Why? Why is she doing this? Why does she continue to struggle?_ Ramsus brushed snow-pale locks from his eyes. Why did she keep fighting a losing battle?   
  
    He kept expecting her to relinquish the challenge, to take up the sled and head towards the other side of the hill where the climb was easier. Yet she reached once again for the rope and cast a sharp gaze towards the summit of the hill, eyes narrowed to green pinpricks of resolution. This time she dropped onto hands and knees and carefully bound the rope around her leg-- with hands that must surely have been frigid by now-- before setting forth on the impossible climb once again.   
  
    _I see. If she ties the sled to her leg, she can have both hands free to climb the hill._ It made sense. And now she was crawling, crawling up the hill, heaving her leg forward and jerking the sled behind her on its rusty runners, grabbing hold of the rock she had missed the first time. For a few moments she lay flat on her stomach, arms around the rock as if grasping for dear life, and then, with a deep intake of breath, pulled herself upwards again, and again, past where she had fallen the first time. The steepest part of the climb was over; it was easier towards the top.   
  
    Her wearied gasps of exhaustion drifted up to his ears; she was red-faced, worn out, and he could scarcely imagine what reward might await at the top of the hill that was worth putting herself through such torment for. And yet Ramsus found himself letting out the breath that had been trapped in his lungs as she edged nearer and nearer to the brink of the hill, relief flooding his consciousness. Why? Why did he care at all for a creature he would never understand, a foolish child who refused to acknowledge the impossibility of the task she had set for herself? But here she was now, hauling herself up over the top of the slope through force of willpower, sled forging a jerky path upwards in her wake. She collapsed onto the level ground, gasping for air.   
  
    He wanted to go over, to say something to her. He remained still, for what was there to say? That he didn't understand her? That he admired her? That he _envied_ her? There were mixed tastes of all three whirling about in his thoughts, none of them clearly standing on their own.   
  
    She looked at him.   
  
    Somehow, in that moment, he couldn't quite recall whether he had ever permitted himself eye contact with a child before. Eye contact was dangerous to him, something to be avoided at all costs; he could not allow himself to be weakened by catching that little glimpse into a person's soul. Children's eyes were more terrible than adults; their stares were genuine, unflinching, unfettered by pettiness or the knowledge of what reactions and feelings are "proper." Yet this time he allowed it.   
  
    The green eyes were softer now, thoughtful. Was that a glimmer of confusion, too, as she tilted her head to assay the odd stranger with skin and hair as pale as the snow who stood watching her like a hawk? Fear? The possibility occurred to him last of all, and he turned away, closing his eyes against the reality of whatever was rising in her gaze.   
  
    When he looked again, the girl's attention was directed elsewhere; she was clambering onto the rickety boards of her sled, adjusting it with a pilot's careful eye as she planned her journey to the bottom. _She came up here only to go back down?_ For a minute he almost thought he'd understood her, but the possibility had slipped away again, quicksilver in his hands. Oblivious now, she hoisted herself into a sitting position. He wanted to jump to his feet, to tell her to stop, to stay, but no words would come, and she was pushing herself off now, the rusting runners edging over the brink of the drop.   
  
    The braid flew behind her like a banner; the sled glid down the hill. Clunky and rusty as it was, it had a grace in motion it had not possessed during the long clumsy climb up the hill. It was in its element now, and the girl seemed for all the world to be in hers as well, a high keen of shock and delight welling from her throat as she slid, a dark streak in the whiteness.   
  
    He followed her path with his gaze, and something reached his awareness: something in her manner changed. She straightened, stiffened, became more alert, like an animal sniffing the air for threats. With a hasty, reflex motion she jerked the sled to the left, trying to steer it away from something, but with a dull thunk that came down like heavy darkness around his head the corner of the sled struck some unseen obstacle.   
  
    It tumbled to the side as its owner was thrown forward, her small body tumbling over dry sticks and snow-covered brambles as she gave a sharp cry.   
  
    For those few seconds afterwards as she lay prone and unmoving, Ramsus felt his heart give an unexpected start, throwing it into a panicked rhythm. Then the muffled, choked noise of sobbing filtered up through the cold air, and he forced himself to relax: she was alive. Of course she was alive. Someone would take care of it-- surely someone would notice a child lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the hill, crying in pain. One of the other children, or her parents (she _did_ have parents, didn't she?). Someone would find her and do what needed to be done.   
  
    His throat had gone dry, and every breath of frigid air drove needles of pain into the sensitive flesh.   
  
    Besides, even if she was wounded-- even if she hadn't survived the collision-- it wouldn't matter anyway, would it? He had seen a river turn red with the shed blood of fallen soldiers. He had seen the deaths of children. Their deaths were no different than those of any other human; they had no more significance in the great scheme of things, the great plan of things. In "God's" plan.   
  
    And now "God" was dead.   
  
    It didn't matter. She didn't matter.   
  
    For some reason, Ramsus found himself stumbling to his feet, brushing snow from the coarse fabric of his jacket.   
  
    He cast a quick glance at the children on the opposite side of the hill; their numbers had dwindled now to no more than eight or ten, and they continued their rote assembly-line motions of sledding, climbing up the hill, sledding back down. They were talking, laughing amongst themselves, caught up with their own joys and pains.   
  
    She didn't matter at all. Someone would find her... and yet...   
  
    He began a slow, cautious climb towards the bottom of the hill, increasing in pace as he went further down; the rubber treads of his military-issue boots were eminently more suited to such difficult terrain than the girl's worn little boots had been. His footfalls made stiff, squeaking thuds in the snow, leaving a thick shuffling trail of displaced snow behind him. An uprising of cold air stirred the hair from his face, like a careful hand, and he saw that the patch of snow where the girl now lay, nursing a wounded arm against her chest, was above a frozen creekbed. Somewhere beneath the insulating snow, he could hear the distant silver tinkling of running water.   
  
    He increased his pace, shaking snow from his boots, barely maintaining balance as he reached the bottom of the hill.   
  
    The crashed sled lay upside-down in the snow beside a large, flat rock. From the top of the hill, it was visible only as a lumpy ridge in the snow; this must have been the sudden obstacle she had tried so hard to avoid. Stiff straw-colored branches and dormant brush crunched beneath his feet as he forged a path towards the frozen creek, tasting blood in his mouth as his teeth clamped upon his lip again, relentless as a vice.   
  
    The girl was curled into a half-fetal position, sobbing softly to herself, the wind stirring a patch of her exposed hair. Ramsus dug the tip of his boot into the snow, making certain he was standing upon solid ground and not adding more weight to the fragile ice which now supported her, before intoning in a voice louder than he'd intended, "Get up."   
  
    A soft whimper. The girl moved slightly, inclining her head so that she could see him. "It hurts," she breathed in a strained voice, clutching her right hand to her chest.   
  
    "That ice is dangerous. Get up," Ramsus demanded, and then, seconds after the words had fallen from his chilled lips-- while the mist produced by their utterance still hung like fog before his vision-- realized that perhaps where a child was concerned, he ought to sound more gentle. More... parently.   
  
    He knelt, feeling the bite of the snow now through the insufficient warmth of his pants, and reached an arm out to the girl. "Are... are you all right? You need to get up before that ice breaks, or you'll be in much greater danger." He'd always adamantly insisted that allowing soldiers and other inferiors to see a glimpse of the human beneath the officer's stone facade would instill more loyalty into them than would dictatorship and cold hard fear. Strictness, yes, but a caring sort of strictness. Perhaps the same was true of children as well.   
  
    The girl gave another choked sob and a sniffle before raising her head a few inches. "I hurt my face..." Something, a stray branch or rock, had scraped against the child's pale cheek, and now blood beaded on a row of shallow scratches.   
  
    "Can you get up?" Ramsus asked, trying to coerce his voice into something resembling softness.   
  
    "It hurts," the girl repeated, lapsing back into sobs.   
  
    The snow was seeping into his clothes now, falling into his boots. "Give me your hand." Tremulously, the girl extended her bare, reddened hand-- the one not injured-- towards him, and he caught a glint of apprehension in her eyes. Impulsively, he yanked off the constraining glove before reaching for her hand. The tiny fingers slipped so easily into the larger confines of his own grasp-- so fragile, so delicate. A piling of sharp dry sticks blocked the path between her body and the brink of the creek; he wouldn't be able to pull her across it unharmed. He gave a light tug, but she felt like a dead weight beneath him; clearly, she was too injured or too unaware of the danger she was in to be an active participant in her own rescue.   
  
    Heaving a sigh of resignment, he inched forward in the snow-- the fabric of his pants was soaked and clinging to his skin now, but it suddenly seemed unimportant in view of the little girl. He'd have to climb onto the edge of the ice to pick her up, but there was a certain risk involved in that; the ice surely wouldn't hold out long against his greater weight, and were they both to tumble into the freezing water below, he didn't know who would come to rescue them. Who would come to take care of them, and who would see it as someone else's problem?   
  
    Burrowing his boot toe farther into the snow, he managed to locate the bank of the creek, and slowly eased himself into a kneeling position on the ice; it would hold up longer if he spread out his weight instead of concentrating it on a single point. His heart was pounding, his blood hot with adrenaline, but the worst part was past: he was on the ice now, and it was supporting his weight, at least for now. He slid his hands beneath the girl's arms and lifted.   
  
    Being a child, she was light, no more than forty or fifty pounds at the most, and he swung her easily over the ice, back onto the banks of the creek. A dull crack emanated from beneath the snow as he bore her weight in his arms, and yet somehow he went on, not pausing in his motion until he was certain she was safely back on solid ground. It was better that he fall in than she.   
  
    The girl lay stretched out at his side, breathing heavily, tears drying on her cheeks in the cold air. With reflex borne from years upon years of military training, he leaped back onto the solid ground beside her as another, louder crack resonated through the ice, making his skin prickle and tingle as if the sound itself had been something tangible.   
  
    For a moment Ramsus simply sat there, letting the breath leave his lungs at last, trying to slow his frenzied heartbeat into a semblance of calm. His pants were soaked; his boots were full of snow, and his feet were going numb in pools of chill water as the heat of his skin melted the ice. The children were nearly gone now from the top of the hill; only a few stragglers remained, pursuing the thrill of one last run in the gathering darkness.   
  
    Finally he turned to the little girl, who had managed to pull herself into a half-sitting crouch and was staring at him with the same intensity of unfettered awe and admiration he had seen before in prisoners when he came to grant them freedom.   
  
    He did not ask for thanks, and she did not give it. He sensed that such an exchange would have made him distinctly uncomfortable, anyway.   
  
    Heavy breaths clouding the air before her face, she glanced up at him, wide-eyed. "You're strong, mister..."   
  
    He remained silent, unsure how to properly reply to what seemed a compliment.   
  
    "Are you a ghost?" The question caused Ramsus to blink in startlement, half-drawing back. "You're so pale..."   
  
    "I..." He ran his tongue over his cold-stiffened lips. "Of course not. It's... just the way I look..."   
  
    She reached out her hand, her uninjured one, and touched him. Touched his cheek, brushed his hair curiously with an extended finger.   
  
    He sat mute and immobile, staring in shock. He had been prepared for the touch, had seen her hand coming towards him, so it hadn't awakened his usual startle reflex, but in a way he was even more deeply unnerved. She had touched him, touched something so low and unworthy as him with green eyes full of admiration and wonderment and curiosity.   
  
    She did not fear him, was not disgusted by him. An odd sort of sensation, not entirely unpleasant, prickled across his thoughts as he considered it.   
  
    "I'm as real as you are..." He wasn't sure where the words had come from, but they seemed somehow proper and natural. Raising his ungloved hand, he put a finger under her chin-- her skin was astonishingly soft and pale, if cold-- and turned the injured side of her cheek towards him.   
  
    "Is it bleeding?" Her eyes were wide again.   
  
    Mutely, he nodded. "Just a little bit. I can fix this..."   
  
    How did it go again? He was so _used_ to doing it the other way, the way it had been before, that now it was like trying to find a new way to breathe, or blink. It was like trying to adapt to something against reflex, against his very nature. But it was possible, that much he knew; he'd managed it before. Deep breathing, and relaxation: that was the first step. His hand stilled on the girl's face while he tried to settle into some semblance of calm; she made no move to retreat, even if she could sense those first stirrings of power.   
  
    Focus _inwards_ and _out:_ that was the second step. It was easier to simply _do_ it, to forge on ahead without allowing himself the luxury of thinking about it, because if he paused to consider it even for a moment, the inherent paradox of the thing would strike him. It was like the centipede's dilemma: if he paused to consider how he did it, he would forget altogether how he had ever managed such a complicated thing at all. He breathed _in_ first, letting his focus go inside, to the core of him; and then, because that essence was part of something much larger and greater and more universal, focused _out_ at the same time.   
  
    He conjured up a quick bit of mental imagery, desperately hoping that his unsteady grasp of the new source wouldn't fail him here and now. His arm was reaching out, reaching, reaching, and there was the power, shimmering just in front of him. All he needed was to touch the surface, just get his fingers wet, just a little bit, and keep it there.   
  
    Contact. He managed to touch his finger to the surface, just barely. And then there was _power._   
  
    Raw power, not the controlled, measured kind they'd used before, easy to draw, easy to ration out, easy to form. This was the very essence and stuff which had created the universe, and it terrified him to think that if this pure creation-destruction energy went out of control, he could destroy himself, or her. But he was nowhere near being able to channel that sheer amount of power, and slowly, tediously, he shaped that primal unformed power into something that could heal, something that could mend and repair, something that could restore and regenerate on a cellular level. By touch alone he let his fingers navigate the curves of the little girl's face, pressing them to the bleeding scratches, holding them there until the skin had repaired itself and knitted back together, leaving only blood behind to indicate that the skin beneath had ever been anything less than unbroken.   
  
    When Ramsus opened his eyes, the little girl was staring at him, the glint in her eyes caught somewhere between awe and fear.   
  
    "Hey... you can do magic." A slow, unsteady, nervous smile broke across her face; he guessed that she was both frightened of and impressed by a man who could wield this new, dangerous power. "My mommy used to be able to do it, too. She can't do it any more, though..." The green gaze fell upon Ramsus's hand, which was still luminous with the sun-gold brightness of the healing energy. "But you can..."   
  
    "It's not magic." He shook his head, reaching for the hand she'd been clutching against her chest, and she surrendered it to him without fuss. "It's just a natural thing. We all have this power..." How ironic, he mused distantly, that he should be able to speak of it in such a matter-of-fact manner, after all the tears and misery and months upon months of fruitless effort he had poured into touching that power at long last. But then, the power was an irony in itself, too: the less one thought about it, the easier it was. The more one raged against it and fought to grasp it, the farther away it fell, ever just out of reach. Idly, he wondered if that quirk of it would make it easier for children to reach and use and mold, as opposed to adults who had grown rigidly accustomed to the ways of the old source.   
  
    He tucked her hand into his own, giving her a gentle squeeze of reassurance as the shimmering glow began to heal her skin. The hand was only scraped, not bleeding, but he knew well how deceptively painful superficial wounds could be. As the pain faded away under the golden bath of light, she seemed to relax somewhat, sitting upright as she drew her hand back towards herself.   
  
    "Th-thank you, mister." She cast an idle glance up towards the top of the hill, a looming mass of darkness now in the twilight.   
  
    For the first time in at least a week and probably longer than that, Ramsus smiled.   
  
    The girl rubbed her newly-healed hands together, blowing on the cold-reddened skin. The oddness of that struck him all at once, and he managed slowly, "Aren't your hands cold? You should be wearing gloves."   
  
    "I don't have any." The girl drew her hands within the sleeves of her jacket, giving the dangling cuffs a very odd look indeed. "I have mittens," she added in a matter-of-fact voice, touched with a note of disdain.   
  
    "Why aren't you wearing them?" Ramsus frowned sharply. "You could get frostbite. That's a very dangerous and foolish thing to do."   
  
    "I didn't want to wear them. Mittens are for babies," she declared, drawing her arms tight against her chest.   
  
    Unable to fathom the logic of this conclusion, he shook his head silently as she amended, "I used to have gloves..." The cold wind began to blow again, ruffling his hair, sending a breath of chill across the back of his neck. "I had to leave them behind."   
  
    He closed his eyes, comprehending all at once. He'd listened to the conversations of the other villagers for long enough to know what that tone of voice meant. _Lost. Gone. Left behind._ Left behind in happier times, the world before the awakening, the world before the fall. Her voice was a soft breeze blowing through an empty shell of a room, stirring dusty curtains and jingling the bells on a forgotten child's toy.   
  
    "Where did you leave them behind?" Ramsus whispered, surprised at the gentleness that had somehow crept into his own voice.   
  
    "In Nortune." The wind grew colder, colder, and she drew her hands tight to her chest, shoulders heaving with shivers. "We used to live there."   
  
    Somehow, he found himself nodding, the gesture almost an unconscious one. "I left things behind too."   
  
    He could feel her gaze on him, pensive green eyes seeking contact with his own. Just that once, he allowed it, opening his yellow-gold eyes and his revealed emotions and his soul to her. She understood. Not the circumstances, not the specifics, but there was a link there. A connection. Something shared, even if he would never truly comprehend what went on in her head and what it felt like to be an ordinary child and how it felt to look back upon that after years untold.   
  
    He let one arm drop to his side, felt the glove pull uncomfortably tight against his knuckles as he closed his hand into a ball for warmth. Impulsively, he glanced at the little girl's bare, reddened hands, at the black glove laying discarded in the snow at his side, and began to tug off the second one as well.   
  
    The wind began its assault on the exposed skin the second he had the glove off. As the burning heat of adrenaline began to dissipate, Ramsus found himself shivering in the dying light; his feet were nearly numb, his pants were soaked, and his coat hadn't been designed for scrabbling about in snow. Flexing and curling his stiff fingers, he gathered up the gloves, holding them out to the little girl. "You can have my gloves. If you don't put something on your hands soon, you'll get frostbite, and that's very painful," he added matter-of-factly, hoping at least that the idea of more pain would be unpleasant enough to coax her into covering her hands.   
  
    Somehow, the look she gave him then put Ramsus in mind of a street urchin who had just been offered a bit of food by a passerby. Her eyes were wary, cautious, scanning the offering and not quite able to bring herself to believe there were no strings attached. "What about your hands? They'll get cold if I take your gloves," she concluded at last.   
  
    "I'll put them in my pockets." He pressed the gloves into her outstretched hand.   
  
    Gingerly she turned one glove over, examining it before tentatively wriggling her fingers into it, savoring the warmth he had left behind. "Are you sure?" she inquired, sliding her hand the rest of the way in.   
  
    "I'll be fine. Really."   
  
    He was surprised when the first few snowflakes landed on his hand, their tiny crystalline geometries evaporating before the heat of his skin. In the woods beyond, dark webs of trees and branches split the sky into fractures of grey. The snow was starting again. Up near the top of the hill, the dim orange glow afforded by one of the newly-installed electric streetlamps made a growing corona of light, illuminating the tiny specks of snow as they tumbled to the ground in growing quantity.   
  
    "I need to go home now..." the girl managed, jerking her hand into the other glove with a few cold-stiffened motions. The gloves were too large for her tiny hands, of course, but there was a recognizable spark of contentment in her eyes as the icy chill of the wind was diminished. She turned her hands over, palms-up, examining the dangling fingertips, the worn and smudged leather, and smiled. "Thanks for the gloves..."   
  
    The clouds above were beginning to form a shapeless darkness; the meager light from the lamp above shimmered off the white cover enveloping the ground. All around them, the snow was beginning to resonate with a faint luminosity. A flake of snow landed on the girl's lip; she licked it off and got to her feet unsteadily, shaking matted snow from her pants and jacket. She ambled cautiously through the growing storm, searching out her fallen sled.   
  
    "Do you need help getting up the hill?" Ramsus asked, raising his voice-- which had somehow eased itself into a warm, blanket-soft, low tone-- to be heard over the muffle of the falling snow. It caught every sound and made it gentler, easier on the ears, subdued and diminished.   
  
    She shook her head, hoisting the frayed rope over her shoulder and glancing towards the hill's crest. In the foggy illumination of the streetlamp, a jacket-clad figure stood in dark silhouette against the light, watchful and still. A parent, perhaps, Ramsus mused. Somehow, it made him feel a bit calmer to think that the little girl had at least one caretaker after so many other children had lost theirs.   
  
    She took off at a run, braid and ribbon flying behind her, glittering with fallen snow. "Thanks. Bye, mister!" This time she was heading for the other side of the hill, the gentler slope, which was now devoid of children and streaked slick with the sled trails left behind. In the falling night she scampered up the incline, dark against shining snow, leaving little puffs of breath in her wake as she approached the brink of the hill.   
  
    The fall of snow thickened, intensified; moments before an idle cold draft blew snow into his face and obscured his vision, he saw her trudging towards the figure under the lamplight, sled in tow. Ramsus closed his eyes and smiled, though no one could have seen him, and it mattered little now. The snow and the night closed in, blanketing the world's sins.   
  
    It was strange, but he didn't feel quite so cold any more, even as he slipped his hands into his dampened pockets and began the long walk home.   
~Fin.~ 


End file.
